Banned due to DOB bug. Anything I can do? I just want to use Curve

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edit/update: after some testing, I realized the app’s input field for date of birth automatically “corrects” whatever you enter so you physically can’t select your age if you’re under 18. When I signed up I used autofill to skip through the process and the app’s input field changed what I entered. The day and year was exactly the same but it reversed by a few months. I didn’t intentionally lie about my DOB (nor use the account I created whilst under 18 - I waited until I turned 18 to start using it) but they’re still just assuming I did and won’t let me use even a new account. More info below I guess

This might be a bit of a weird case but I hope some of you guys can hear me out and potentially advise me on what to do next…

I just signed up to Curve a few days ago, selected the black plan and have so far used the card twice, once at Starbucks with Curve Pay and once online at eBay. A few minutes ago I got this email:

I regret to inform you that after careful consideration we’ve decided to cancel your account. This is due to activity that violates Curve’s Terms of Service. Please note that this applies to your previous, current and any future account you may wish to have with Curve. I’m sorry that we can’t continue to provide our services to you.

I think I know why. A few months before I turned 18 (literally a few months, the same year) a friend told me to sign up to Curve using a referral link so he could get a bonus. I never actually ended up using the account, and at the time didn’t actually notice it was 18+ (for reference, I live in a country where the drinking age is 17 and most people have bank accounts at 16)

A few months later, after turning 18, I rediscovered Curve and thought it would actually be pretty useful. I’d forgotten about my initial sign up and was having issues creating an account, so I emailed support who told me I’d already created an account and lied about my date of birth (which I genuinely wouldn’t and didn’t do, but of course understand why that would be against TOS)

It took some pushing but I was eventually told what the date of birth provided was. It was the day I signed up minus 18 years, which to me genuinely seems like the app just correcting whatever I was autofilled to allow the sign up flow to proceed, or limiting the input.

I understand why that old account (not this one) had to be deleted if the DOB assigned to it was incorrect. However a few days after signing up properly this time I was told that after “careful consideration” my current account would be closed. I never did anything fraudulent, all my payment cards are my own, I just want to be able to have a unified transaction history and I’m happy to pay for that service.

Out of every possible violation the thing that stops me ever being able to use Curve is an account created a few months before turning 18, that I never actually used, without knowing it was 18+ and without intentionally providing a false date of birth. Again, I genuinely believe that the reason my initial account had a different date was simply because the app wouldn’t autofill my correct DOB, and it just selected the wrong one without me noticing.

I sent all this off as a reply to the account closure email but honestly don’t think it’s gonna get very far. The first time I had to deal with support responses took forever and I was only able to get a reply after talking to the social media team.

Any thoughts on how I should handle this? Chances of them ruling in my favor? I really just want to have unified transaction history, I use so many cards these days and a lot of the time their apps suck so it helps to be able to filter by category, amount, currency, which card was used etc.

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1 Like
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It’s your own fault…you are not a trustworthy customer for Curve. Who cheats once, cheats also sometime a second, third or or times…

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I guess I get that, the thing is I didn’t actually lie about the birthdate and I’m not just saying that because I think it’ll get me unbanned or whatever. There wasn’t any indication in the app, I sped through sign up and I use autofill for this sort of stuff so it probably tried to autofill my actual DOB, the app physically wouldn’t allow those dates to be selected and it just ended up using the earliest date available.

I wish they had a system similar to what Moneybase (a local bank here) does. They let you create your account, enter your date of birth without input field restrictions, and then if it detects you’re under their age limit they ship you the card out anyway but have it automatically unfreeze on your birthday.

Not sure how I’d cheat a second/third time since Curve isn’t really something you can take advantage of. I don’t want to refer anyone or use any promotions, just have unified transaction history

Either way guess it really is up to Curve, if they don’t want me as a customer because they think I’m going to lie about my birthday a second time (?) then it’s their choice at the end of the day. Just wish there was some kind of service that could compare, they really have a monopoly at the moment

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I did start a brand new account, although I used the same phone number and email as my previous account (not trying to ban evade or anything)

It didn’t stop me on signup, but like I said a few days later the account was suddenly closed. You also mentioned in PM that I should try reaching out to the complaints department, just wanted to relay here that I did do that after the first account was closed and unfortunately they upheld the decision.

Generally complaints departments are there to ensure they’re not going to be sued or lose their financial licenses, making sure they’re following applicable laws but there isn’t really room for consideration (at least in my experience)

This is the response I got. The general vibe is they stand by the app entry, and think I intentionally provided misleading information. It’s not like I signed a legal document lying about my age, I just had autofill and the app blocks you from entering a date sooner than the current day minus 18yrs.

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Then I replied with this:

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And got this in response:
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My final reply:

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At the end of the day it’s their right to close the account, not much I can do about it, but it sucks that they’re standing by the “false and misleading information” thing when I know I didn’t intentionally enter that. Every time I try and dispute that they just say it’s in the terms of service so really there’s nothing I can do, and they’re right.

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I think there is not much you can do about it.
One last thing, just out of curiousity, you could try and simulate a new signup process to see if the app really automatically adjusts the date of birth when it leads to an age < 18. If so you could try and record the video and send it to them.

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I did do additional testing and the app does indeed “correct” autofilled information. I sent this off to the complaints team tonight, we’ll see how it goes.

Hey, I know it’s been a couple months but I’ve been trying to figure out how this even happened so I went back and tested the sign up flow in the app. I know I didn’t enter a false date of birth but of course anyone would say that, at least now I know why. My word likely doesn’t mean anything but I’ve been genuinely confused as to how this even happened and would like the chance to explain it - if this was about me actually lying about my date of birth I wouldn’t bother submitting a formal complaint, that’s obviously not something to fight about.I use autofill to skip through these sorts of things, so this issue was due to a combination of my autofill injection and the way the app handles date inputs. The date selection field on Android blocks users from setting their actual birthdate if they’re under 18, but because of this it’ll automatically go back and change the day/month/year to correct it if you have autofill and enter a date that’s not supported. Hence why the year and day were the same, but the month was set to the latest possible value which was June in my case. Additionally, once users are past the date of birth prompt they’re unable to go back and change it if they notice it’s been done incorrectly.

I’m well aware of the regulatory restrictions on providing financial services to minors who can’t sign contracts, and of course had I known at the time that Curve was 18+ I wouldn’t have started the sign up. In my country the age for drinking, self-controlled bank accounts etc is 17, not 18, so I didn’t think to double check. That’s my mistake, but I highly suggest changing the way the date of birth field works to avoid these situations. Some possible alternatives would be allow the field to accept any date, and then after you proceed to the next step run an age verification check on the entered data. You could perhaps keep the account and automatically unlock it once the user turns 18 (this is something some other services do)

To summarize I know this won’t go anywhere, the decision is final etc but I just really want it to be known that I did not “provide a false date of birth” and I’m pretty certain this whole thing was because of the way the app handles input. I suspected this before but couldn’t verify it, as my account was stuck in the suspended state so I couldn’t go back to test the input field. If you use autofill, and the DOB input selector physically doesn’t allow the data entered, it’ll fall back to the last allowed value and won’t let you go back to change it. My complaint isn’t about the fact I was banned for providing a false date of birth, it’s that the Android app doesn’t allow you to change your date of birth if it’s been entered incorrectly by mistake and apparently that can cause you to be banned for life.

All the best, hope they can at least make some changes to the app. Sucks to not be able to use Curve because of an input glitch but at this point I’ve tried every avenue and it’s clear the decision was final. I don’t want to cause legal issues for Curve, I don’t know if I’ll bother with the LT supervision service and I know you’re well within your right to suspend the account if the DOB provided was false as that’s a violation of the TOS, but it’s not as if I signed a legal document with false information. I’m not the kind of person to lie about DOB, obviously I know it sounds like a bad excuse to say “the app made me do it” or whatever but I’ve done extensive testing (and encourage you to do the same) and this is absolutely a reproduceable issue. I feel I at least deserve a chance to explain myself and potentially give you some ideas to update the app so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.

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Good, let us know what they say. I would have also attached a video recording of the screen to demonstrate the scenario instead of just giving instructions on how to replicate it.

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Unfortunately I’m not able to get back to the DOB screen since as I mentioned once you’ve filled it in it doesn’t let you go back, and my account has been suspended. Could try using a different device, number and email to get back to sign up again but I worry that would look like ban evading.

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My word likely doesn’t mean anything but I’ve been genuinely confused as to how this even happened and would like the chance to explain it - if this was about me actually lying about my date of birth I wouldn’t bother submitting a formal complaint, that’s obviously not something to fight about.

Here we see strong argument and keep this track. Fight and provide evidence . We live year 2023 all kind oligarchs all around world doing not good but
you only just person
and not cool at all i mean. Fair second change. :balance_scale:

May you prosper on your way. :pray: :person_gesturing_ok:

:selfie: :muscle: :seedling: :balance_scale: :memo:

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Got a reply back to this first message, just a generic one but at least it’s something and they seem to be looking into it:

Thanks for getting in touch. I’m sorry for the delay, but I can assure you that we are looking into this and will be back in touch as soon as possible.

I also wanted to add that I do feel like curve does a lot of influencer marketing, social media ads etc, a few of which were actually delivered to me despite me entering accurate age on all social media platforms. So I don’t think it was too stupid to assume the limit would be 16+ or 17+ like a lot of other services.

At the end of the day I recognize I started the initial sign up early but I’m not sure it justifies a ban for life… Until I got to the verification step there was nowhere that said you had to be 18, however there is the date of birth field which like I said “corrects itself” if you use autofill and don’t notice, and you can’t change the data entered once you go past that screen. After failing verification and it said 18+ I removed the app and assumed my account would just get deleted.